Jack Dean is editor of PensionTsunami.org, formed to monitor developments in all three pension spheres nationwide — public employees, corporations and social security. PensionTsunami, like UnionWatch, is a project of the California Public Policy Center. Dean is a former newspaper editor and a past executive director of the Reason Foundation. He has been active in politics for more than three decades and currently serves as president of the Fullerton Association of Concerned Taxpayers.
Recession of 2008 Exposed True Cost of Public Employee Unions By Tad DeHaven, March 21, 2011, Washington Examiner A silver lining in the dark cloud of the recession that began in 2008 is that it has awakened the nation’s beleaguered private-sector work force to the fact that government employees are prospering at their expense. For...
By Jack Dean
John, Ken and two powerful Republicans battle Jerry Brown on spending By Anthony York and Shane Goldmacher, March 13, 2011, Los Angeles Times It’s drive-time in Los Angeles, and that means radio hosts John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou are riffing about state politicians. Within a matter of moments, they refer to various lawmakers as “traitorous...
By Jack Dean
Union Myths By Thomas Sowell, March 8, 2011, Townhall.com The biggest myth about labor unions is that unions are for the workers. Unions are for unions, just as corporations are for corporations and politicians are for politicians. Nothing shows the utter cynicism of the unions and the politicians who do their bidding like the so-called...
By Jack Dean
Collective bargaining on a broad scale is more similar to an antitrust violation than to a civil liberty By Robert Barro, February 28, 2011, Wall Street Journal Labor unions like to portray collective bargaining as a basic civil liberty, akin to the freedoms of speech, press, assembly and religion. For a teachers union, collective bargaining...
By Jack Dean
The Showdown in Wisconsin Over Public Union Power By Steven Malanga, February 22, 2011, Wall Street Journal Government workers have taken to the streets in Madison, Wis., to battle a series of reforms proposed by Gov. Scott Walker that include allowing workers to opt out of paying dues to unions. Everywhere that this “opt out”...
By Jack Dean
California unions stand in the way of a Texas-sized success By Mark Hemingway, February 11, 2011, Washington Examiner In the first half of 2010, Texas saw more small business growth than any other state in the country. During that period, it also added 178,000 jobs — twice as many as any other state. Texas was...
By Jack Dean
Idaho lawmakers target union leverage with bills By Jessie L. Bonner, February 7, 2011, Bloomberg Legislation introduced by Republican Reps. Bob Nonini and Reed DeMordaunt last week would ban taxpayer money from going toward a labor organization for dues or to train workers, while also prohibiting school districts from including union activities in job descriptions...
By Jack Dean
The NLRB Is On The Offensive James R. Grasso, January 31, 2011, The Metropolitan Corporate Counsel When President Obama took office in 2009, one of the top priorities of his administration and the Democratic-controlled Congress was passage of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). EFCA would have dramatically altered the labor relations landscape by removing...
By Jack Dean
How Public Unions Took Taxpayers Hostage By Fred Siegel, January 25, 2011, The Wall Street Journal The turbulent years of the 1960s and ’70s are best known by the headline-grabbing civil rights and women’s rights movements. But there was another “rights” movement, largely overlooked, that has also had a profound effect on American life. The...
By Jack Dean
State Of The Unions – Public Support for Labor Unions Hits a New Low By James Surowiecki, January 17, 2011, The New Yorker In the heart of the Great Depression, millions of American workers did something they’d never done before: they joined a union. Emboldened by the passage of the Wagner Act, which made collective...
By Jack Dean
Labor’s Coming Class War By William McGurn, January 4, 2011, The Wall Street Journal Private-sector union workers begin to notice that their job prospects are at risk from public-employee union contracts. Jeffrey Brown of PBS’s “NewsHour” recently summed up the year’s economic performance by invoking the most overworked chestnut of modern American punditry: “the disconnect...
By Jack Dean
Organized Labor Battlefront Building In Illinois By Rich Miller, December 27, 2010, Southwest Suburban News Herald Organized labor is engaged in a furious multi-front legislative war in Illinois, and more skirmishes may be on the horizon. Trade and industrial unions are hoping to mitigate major damage from proposed workers compensation reforms. Teachers unions are trying...
By Jack Dean
Brown, prison union walking hand-in-hand By Dan Morain, December 19, 2010, The Sacramento Bee Jerry Brown is preparing to dance with the ones who brung him, specifically 31,000 members of the California Correctional Peace Officers Association. Jilted by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the union cozied up to Brown by spending $1.4 million to help elect him....
By Jack Dean
Union dues bill: Payback? By M.J. Ellington, December 12, 2010, Montgomery Times Many legislators say a bill prohibiting payroll deductions for organization dues and political action committees is the key to the special session on ethics reform. Others say the Senate bill in Gov. Bob Riley’s ethics reforms package is payback to the Alabama Education...
By Jack Dean
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